Close, Frank E. (Author)
Basic Books
Physical Details: xix + 378 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
Bruno Pontecorvo dedicated his career to hunting for the Higgs boson of his day-- the neutrino, a nearly massless particle considered essential to the process of nuclear fission. His work on the Manhattan project under Enrico Fermi confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist and helped usher in the nuclear age. He should have won a Nobel Prize, but late in the summer of 1950 he vanished. At the height of the Cold War, Pontecorvo had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo's life, based on unprecedented access to his friends, family, and colleagues. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller-- classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a kidnapping by Soviet operatives-- Half-Life is a history of particle physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.
...MoreReview Segrè, Gino (2015) Review of "Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy". Physics in Perspective (pp. 70-73).
Similar Citations
Book
Turchetti, Simone;
(2012)
The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB001210044/)
Chapter
Barbara Villone;
(2009)
La "fisica di altri tempi" dell'epoca di Fermi : il contributo torinese di Gian Carlo Wick
(/isis/citation/CBB952090767/)
Book
Gino Segrè;
Bettina Hoerlin;
(2017)
Il Papa della fisica: Enrico Fermi e la nascita dell’era atomica
(/isis/citation/CBB512699130/)
Book
Jennet Conant;
(2017)
Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist
(/isis/citation/CBB810593164/)
Chapter
Giulio Maltese;
(2009)
Enrico Fermi e il suo ruolo nella scienza, in Italia e in America
(/isis/citation/CBB953079691/)
Chapter
Silvio Bergia;
(2009)
Storia di un programma perdente, ovvero Vita effimera di illusioni teoriche
(/isis/citation/CBB966787922/)
Article
Olena Voitiuk;
(2021)
Heritage of Academician: Stanislav Koniukhov in the Rocket and Space Industry of Ukraine
(/isis/citation/CBB075112153/)
Book
Carlo Bernardini;
(2009)
La fisica nucleare e subnucleare nel '900 in Italia: lo sviluppo spontaneo di una scuola scientifica di frontiera
(/isis/citation/CBB331375417/)
Article
Usdin, Steven T.;
(2009)
The Rosenberg Ring Revealed: Industrial-Scale Conventional and Nuclear Espionage
(/isis/citation/CBB001030400/)
Book
David K. Hecht;
(2015)
Storytelling and Science: Rewriting Oppenheimer in the Nuclear Age
(/isis/citation/CBB338582480/)
Book
Vincent Kiernan;
(2022)
Atomic Bill: A Journalist's Dangerous Ambition in the Shadow of the Bomb
(/isis/citation/CBB835288037/)
Article
Matteo Leone;
Nadia Robotti;
(2015)
Chasing the Ghost Particle: The Long and Winding Road Toward the Detection of Solar Neutrinos
(/isis/citation/CBB517819826/)
Chapter
Baracca, Angelo;
(2012)
The Global Diffusion of Nuclear Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB001422698/)
Book
West, Nigel;
(2004)
Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft in History: Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project
(/isis/citation/CBB000470202/)
Article
Goodstein, Judith R.;
(2001)
A Conversation with Franco Rasetti
(/isis/citation/CBB000102529/)
Article
Kemp, R. Scott;
(2012)
The End of Manhattan: How the Gas Centrifuge Changed the Quest for Nuclear Weapons
(/isis/citation/CBB001250050/)
Book
Bernardini, Carlo;
Bonolis, Luisa;
(2004)
Enrico Fermi: His Work and Legacy
(/isis/citation/CBB000600000/)
Book
Giuseppe Bruzzaniti;
(2016)
Enrico Fermi: The Obedient Genius
(/isis/citation/CBB951048608/)
Book
David N. Schwartz;
(2017)
The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age
(/isis/citation/CBB537532932/)
Chapter
Vincenzo Cioci;
(2009)
Szilard e Rasetti: due scienziati a confronto
(/isis/citation/CBB787431166/)
Be the first to comment!